Young Writers Society

Hi there, Alliyah is here to review! (Welcome to Young Writers Society by the way)

Grammar & Spelling
Your capitalization is a little bit random. I'd keep it consistent and capitalize the 'i' in "if you look good" and the 'a' in "a stranger."

Towards the beginning I'm not sure if you meant to repeat the line "I swear," twice. If so, I think it'd be more effective to put a period after the first one; so it'd be "I swear. I swear,"

I believe you could take out the phrase "just to make it all so" (towards end) it's redundant and adds no new meaning.


Formatting & Wording
This line was honestly wonderful:

"And I know we've each wanted to drag the old bones out and beat them with a bat, labeled: 'They NEVER loved me.' "

The metaphor of trying to one-up someone with how sad their lives are and all the secrets they have in their closet is just really original and perfectly expresses the emotions to the reader.

I didn't check the rating before reading, but if this isn't rated higher than E for everyone it should be because of the word "damning", I'm not sure on this though. It depends on if you meant it in the literal sense of going to hell or literally being "damned" or if you meant it more like cussing.

The line that said "scars on my tongue" also had great imagery and meaning. Again I just love the originality of it too!

You don't use very formal language, but it's not too simplistic either; it's a good medium for the tone of the piece. What you really excelled at was putting a completely original and authentic spin on a topic that's sort of been done a lot. There was a few spots where it seemed disjointed bubbling from depressed, to lonely, to angry, to affectionate. I don't completely dislike this disjointedness because even with all of it I still felt like I could feel what the speaker was feeling and relate in a genuine way because unlike most generically depressing poems you let the reader completely connect with the speaker and you gave the speaker's life an aspect other than sadness which make them so much more realistic.

The formatting was strange. I personally like lines with no more than 9 words divided into neat stanzas maybe with a rhyme scheme thrown in. However I am very much aware that this is not always the best format for a poem.

This poem had all different lengths of lines and it seemed to me like when it was a really long line it makes the reader speed up and makes it seem like the speaker is talking quicker almost rambling. It really emphasizes the shorter lines and makes the long portions fade together.
Something to think about would be adding stanza breaks, while not essential this would give your poem a more thought out and polished look. It would also help you and the reader better organize the thoughts and maybe keep the emotions, ideas, and memories straight and succinct so they don't all get so muddled together.

Meaning & Overall Impression
This poem's meaning had a lot to do with identity I feel like (given the title and the emphasis on memories and experiences), I feel like I don't know who the speaker really is right now but I have a sense of who they've been in the past. You give a lot of emphasis on emotion which is odd because although we all have unique experiences in our lives we all have felt happy, sad, angry, guilty etc. at some point in our lives. So for a poem about identity it is an interesting choice to put so much emphasis on a human trait that cannot uniquely identifying to anyone. This may be to emphasize that we all could be the person in this poem though, just like we've all felt these emotions (maybe not in the same way or capacity).

Very interesting poem, overall I enjoyed the emotion and authenticity, but felt some of the formatting was a bit disjointed and unorganized. Good luck in future writing!

~alliyah